PPTP Speeds?

I'm experiencing very slow upload speeds on a PPTP connection. Here is the setup:

Server location: Asus RT-AC66U running Merlin 378.52. Cox ISP speed: 50 mbps down/5 mbps up
Client location: Asus RT-AC66U running Merlin 378.52. Time-Warner ISP speed: 30 mbps down/5 mbps up

Client 1: Windows 7, i5-2450M, 8 GB ram, 500 GB SSD, Gigabit wired connection.
Client 2: Windows 8.1, i3, 4 GB ram, 100 GB SSD. Wireless AC connection on 5g, 600+ bps on wifi.

Up and download speeds verified by Speedtest.net to known good servers.

When either Client is connected to the Server, I get 3.5-4 mbps download, which seems reasonable given the 5 mbps upload speed at the Server end. But I only get about 0.5 mbps upload speed from the clients. I think it should be about the same as download, since the ISP upload speeds are limited the same at 5 mbps.

I've removed Microsoft Security Essentials and disabled Windows Defender, having read via Google that they have been known to slow things down. No help.

Any suggestions? I want to stick with PPTP for it's simplicity and don't need absolute security, just a good connection for syncing to my NAS remotely.

Those speeds are low even for MIPS based devices. It could be either ISP throttle or something running. disabling the AV doesnt exactly solve the problem. You might want to try disabling windows auto tuning and perform a check on your network and router to make sure they arent maxed out on CPU and on internet use. You should also disable default gateway for internet on your windows clients.

It would be better to just create a tunnel between your routers instead of having clients perform the connection. Since it is a consumer router you cant expect it to balance traffic well among multiple clients.

I tried disabling auto tune and got no improvement.

Then I tried a router to router PPTP connection, and got the same poor performance, 5 down as expected but only 0.4 up. With that, I don't think I have a PC problem, I think Time-Warner must be restricting the VPN port upload speeds. Or else it's something in the cable modem.

Not done troubleshooting yet!

Further troubleshooting: Connected the client PC directly to the Time-Warner cable modem and got the same results. Good download, poor upload. So I'm still wondering if Time-Warner is restricting the upload ports speed on home service whereas Cox is not.

Does anybody know if TW is doing this? 3rd level tech support says not.

I'll be at the server end in a few weeks and will investigate that end if this is not solved by then.

colecaz said:

I'm experiencing very slow upload speeds on a PPTP connection. Here is the setup:

Server location: Asus RT-AC66U running Merlin 378.52. Cox ISP speed: 50 mbps down/5 mbps up
Client location: Asus RT-AC66U running Merlin 378.52. Time-Warner ISP speed: 30 mbps down/5 mbps up

Client 1: Windows 7, i5-2450M, 8 GB ram, 500 GB SSD, Gigabit wired connection.
Client 2: Windows 8.1, i3, 4 GB ram, 100 GB SSD. Wireless AC connection on 5g, 600+ bps on wifi.

Up and download speeds verified by Speedtest.net to known good servers.

When either Client is connected to the Server, I get 3.5-4 mbps download, which seems reasonable given the 5 mbps upload speed at the Server end. But I only get about 0.5 mbps upload speed from the clients. I think it should be about the same as download, since the ISP upload speeds are limited the same at 5 mbps.

Click to expand...

You've answered your own question - VPN, any kind, is basically limited to the lower of the link speeds... and there's some protocol overhead with any VPN platform - PPTP is generally the faster, but depends on implementation...

sfx